Managing end-of-year overwhelm

It's *that* time of the year

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Are you there with me, in that final countdown to the end of 2023? I’m swimming in a big pile of deadlines with very little time on my calendar to accomplish all of it, mostly because my kids are off school for vast amounts of time throughout November and December.

The other day, I freaked out about my long to do list. I’d made a list of everything I needed to accomplish during the week — made worse by the fact that I’d worked a short week the week before — and y’all, that list was long. I became completely overwhelmed, so much so that I froze. Instead of starting somewhere, I scrolled Instagram instead.

My husband showed up at our co-working space and kindly instructed me to rewrite my to do list. Today, I’m going to share that exercise with you, my lovely subscribers. Try it out and let me know how it goes.

Before you start, grab a pen and paper. This one’s better done by hand.

Step 1: Create buckets

First, create categories for the work that needs to be accomplished before the end of the year. (When I say work, I also mean unpaid work, such as caretaking and managing your health.) Here are the buckets I used, just to get you started with your own list: